Her Pained Blue Silence Read online

  Her Pained Blue Silence

  A.J. Downey

  Contents

  BOOK FIVE

  COPYRIGHT

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  Also by A.J. Downey

  About the Author

  BOOK FIVE

  Published 2018 by Second Circle Press

  Text Copyright © 2018 A.J. Downey

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by an electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner and are not to be construed as real except where noted and authorized. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events are purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or names featured are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used.

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Editing by Barbara J. Bailey

  Book design by Maggie Kern

  Cover art and Indigo Knights logo by Dar Albert at Wicked Smart Designs

  Photo by FuriousFotog

  Model Dylan Horsch

  * * *

  A big thank you to all my readers. For making the Indigo Knights as successful as the SHMC. I’m happy to keep writing as long as you’re reading.

  Prologue

  Everleigh…

  He was crazy, I didn’t know what he was talking about. I couldn’t talk. At least, not really. I mean, I only talked to him, when it was quiet, when we were alone, when I was calm and felt safe… and since he had started using, I hadn’t felt safe in a very long time.

  “You fucked up, Silence,” he said, leaning against his bike, lighting his blunt. He looked at me over the glowing red coal and sucked the smoke deep into his lungs, holding it and saying, his voice strained with the effort, “You fucked up big-time.”

  I felt my eyes go wide, pleading silently my innocence, but it didn’t matter; King believed wholeheartedly that I’d done something and I was filled with dread over what he might do.

  “Boys,” he intoned soullessly, and I was seized by either arm. I cried out wordlessly, and looked frantically from Joker to Rebel as they dragged me, unresisting at first, towards the trees. It took a second for my fight reflex to kick in, but it wasn’t any use anyway as I writhed and twisted between them trying to get free. Even if I did, it wouldn’t do any good. There were six of them and only one of me, and I don’t think I would have been able to outrun them, no matter how hard I tried.

  They forced me to my knees and slipped a loop of cord over each of my wrists and lashed me between two trees that were close together. I struggled against the bonds, the slipknots catching and tightening, the cords strangling my wrists and cutting off my circulation. I stopped, panting, and begged King with my eyes to please, please not do this.

  “Silence, Silence, Silence,” he chanted, using the road name he’d given me. He sighed and dropped the last of the blunt to the forest floor, grinding it out carefully under his heavy boot. “You didn’t think I’d figure out it was you?” he asked.

  I wept. I hadn’t done anything! I didn’t know what he was talking about! I couldn’t speak. It was not that I didn’t want to, I couldn’t. What did he want from me?

  “Never trust a bitch,” King said. “Thought you were perfect. Pretty, hot, can’t speak? Gotta love that. Almost perfect for a guy like me, but you lied to me, didn’t you?”

  I shook my head back and forth. He shook his, too, and called out, “Whiskey, you wanna patch in?”

  The prospect perked up and looked over. “You know I do, King.”

  “Prove it. Show Si here what happens to traitors to the Knights of Crescentia.”

  Terrified, I struggled against my bonds anew as King dug into one of his saddlebags. He came up with a hammer and two long, wicked-looking nails.

  He held them out to Whiskey, who marginally relaxed. I wasn’t relaxed. I wasn’t relaxed at all. I prayed, I wept, and I hoped against hope that any second, King would start laughing. That he would say ‘Just kidding,’ but I knew that look in his eyes, the cruelty in them. I shuddered and sweat dripped down my back between my shoulder blades.

  Whiskey spit on the ground and plucked the hammer and nails from King’s hands. When Whiskey had first shown up, I had thought he was handsome, cleaner than the rest of the guys, even King. Now I was forced to face him as he stalked with assurance in my direction, the hammer in one hand, nails in the other, his tread dull against the earth, each hollow thump of his footsteps ominous. My heart raced, the blood rushing in my ears, as I pleaded with my eyes and wept, my tears slicking hot down my face tightening my skin.

  I clenched my fists and keened wordlessly from behind my gritted teeth when all I wanted were the words, Don’t! Please stop! I didn’t do whatever it is you think I did! I would give anything to speak them, but that’s not how it worked. I couldn’t. Just trying left me feeling like I was choking on my own tongue.

  Whiskey stuck the nails in his back pockets and dropped to his knees by my left hand. I hyperventilated as he forced my fingers to uncurl and flattened the back of my hand against the rough bark. I shook my head back and forth, back and forth, begging with my gaze for him not to do this, and I swear I saw it reflected back in his eyes, the sorrow that he had to.

  I swallowed hard and tried to prepare myself, but there was no preparing for it.

  The pain was sharp and immediate, and I screamed, long, loud, and wordless. Each strike of the hammer reverberated through my palm and out through my fingers. I felt sick, nausea sweeping over and through me, and it was only made worse when I looked at my mangled hand, bleeding, the nail through the palm and into the tree.

  I looked up at him, agonized, the expression on my face hopefully telegraphing Why?

  He looked grim, his mouth set in a hard line behind his beard, his gaze hooded as he unfurled my other hand against the opposite tree.

  I shook my head weakly and sobbed, damning my inability to speak in front of people. The overwhelming fear and anxiety all but paralyzed my vocal cords, my tongue failed to cooperate. I couldn’t speak, but I was aware that, even if I could, it wouldn’t matter.

  I screamed again as the second nail bit into my flesh and Whiskey pounded it home. I choked on my own sobs. I dry-heaved, but, mercifully, didn’t throw up, as the guys stood around laughing and chatting like they would if we were simply out he
re for them to shoot, which was the impression I’d been under when we’d left that morning.

  I raised my head and looked at King, who stalked up to me and grabbed me by the back of the hair. He jerked my head all the way back and stared down at me coldly, indifferent to my suffering.

  “Think I’m gonna put that mouth of yours to good use one last time. For old time’s sake, what do you say?” he asked, a cruel smile flickering to life at the corners of his mouth as he worked at his belt.

  “Might not want to do that, King,” Whiskey called out. The rest of the guys looked a mix of uncomfortable and eager. I cast a grateful look at Whiskey for this small mercy but my hopes in a softer side in him were dashed when he continued, “You plan on leavin’ her here to die, you don’t want to leave any DNA behind.”

  “Good point,” King replied. “Any of you fuckers got a condom?”

  I guess I was finally fortunate to some degree. Heads shook and there were negative sounding grunts and ‘No’s sweeping through the men standing around watching our little tableau.

  “Guess I’m out of luck, then,” he said, tucking himself away. He let go of my head and I sagged with relief.

  “You got a few hours to think about what you done, before either the animals come and get you or the cold does overnight. Personally,” he sniffed, “I hope it’s the latter.”

  I looked up and a new terror seized me.

  “See you around, Silence. Probably in Hell,” King declared, throwing his leg over his bike. He turned back to Whiskey and said, “Welcome to the Knights of Crescentia, Whiskey.” He looked past Whiskey and said, “Rebel, give him his colors.”

  They left me there after that. They left me there alone, and terrified.

  I didn’t want to die.

  1

  Narcos…

  I had a knot in my gut the whole ride back to what the Knights of Crescentia called ‘The Lair’. It was their clubhouse, but that wasn’t saying much. They didn’t keep anything there. There were no quarters for sleeping and King would have your ass beat if he caught you crashing there. It wasn’t how King rolled. He was careful, cunning, almost always one step ahead of the law ‒ which was why I was here.

  It’d taken me a year and some change to get this far with them, and I felt fuckin’ sick at what’d it had taken to earn my colors, at the way Silence, King’s ol’ lady, had looked up at me, pleading with those startling green eyes of hers under the tangled mop of her long auburn hair. I felt a guilt like no other, had no idea how or why King thought it’d been her that’d narced out the last exchange when it’d been all me.

  I needed to get a hold of Driller and I needed to find out what the actual fuck. That bust should have never gone down when it did. If they’d only fuckin’ waited…

  I couldn’t think about it right now. I had to take my fuckin’ orders even with the fresh set of colors on my back, and get that shit handled, so I could get out there and prevent Silence’s dyin’.

  I was sure I was the last man she wanted to see, but I had no way of telling anyone where she was. It was one of those ‘I would know the route if I took it, if I could see it’ places, but those woods were a ways out along old forestry roads, and tough navigating even by bike, which was the only way I could retrieve her. If I took a truck, I’d be stopped by the barriers across the old road; bikes could go around them.

  It was an ideal location to pop off rounds with their cache of illegal firearms, mostly fully-automatic shit, some of it, military-grade. The weapons would be just a bonus. I was after their drug trade. Of course, murder trumps all, and I was sure there were some dead bodies with the Knights of Crescentia’s logo stamped on them.

  I was also sure that King had just given me a shortcut getting to them.

  I don’t know a woman alive that wouldn’t be willing to speak out against an old boyfriend who’d just had her nailed to a tree. Even a woman who didn’t speak.

  Of course, on the flip side, I didn’t know a woman alive who would speak to the man who’d done the actual nailing, but here was hoping that saving her life might buy me some currency to bargain with in that exchange.

  There were a lot of ‘if’s and a whole lot of hope riding on some useless prayers here, but sometimes all you could do was live on a prayer. I was just prayin’ she would still be alive when I got to her.

  I did what King wanted. I ‘got rid’ of her shit, wiping out any evidence of her ever being in his small house in the poorer section at the edge of the city. I took it to a safe place, a storage unit in the heart of the city, and actually rode past Poe at one point. He didn’t even acknowledge me, which is as it should be. Never fuckin’ knew who was watching. On the street, there were eyes and ears everywhere.

  When I was sure I was good and there was nothing else that King wanted, I had to wait for nightfall.

  My heart was all jammed up with apprehension, the whole ride back out to where we’d been that morning. I carefully guided the bike around the barrier and worked my way up the track of old, cracked blacktop, blanketed in dirt and pine needles mixed with decaying leaf litter.

  I was half-afraid I would come up on one of the other Knights, the sovereign motherfuckers, King having put the idea into their heads that rape was on the menu. Silence was a fine-looking piece of ass according to every one of the men in the Knights of Crescentia, and they weren’t lying.

  She was a slight and fine-boned bohemian hippy-chick, younger than most of us, but ageless at the same time. I knew she had to be in her twenties, but she sometimes looked like a barely-legal teen, depending on the day and how much makeup she had on, which really depended on King’s mood, from what I gathered.

  My headlight swept the trees she was between and my heart damn near seized in my chest. She was still there, but it didn’t look good. Her head was bowed, her long hair hiding her face. I turned off the bike and swung a leg over, grabbing the nail-puller I’d brought out of the inside pocket of my jacket.

  Just when I thought I was too late, she dragged her head up weakly, the beam of my headlamp, weaker with the bike shut off, illuminating her pale face, which was rendered paler, my guess, from pain and loss of blood. Truth be told, I was more concerned about the latter than anything; the tree bark below her hands was glittering dark and wet.

  “This is gonna hurt, hang in there for me,” I told her, focused on getting her free. I braced the nail-puller against her palm, making sure that the head of the nail was secure in the notch, and torqued it free. She screamed and immediately tried to drag her hand to her chest; the paracord they’d bound her with stopped her.

  “Wait!” I hissed and flicked open my knife. “Don’t take it off your wrist,” I told her and cut the line.

  “Hang on,” I said over the keening sobs escaping her throat, and I pulled a bandana from my pocket and wrapped it around her hand, tying it securely in on itself. She let me, but it was a little bit of a battle.

  I got her other hand free and bandaged, and she knelt, clutching her ruined hands to her chest, bent forward until her forehead nearly touched the earth.

  Her weeping was heartrending, but I didn’t have time for that now. I had to get her to Trinity Gen, where she would be safe. I had to get in touch with Driller and get her into his custody. Then, I had to pray I hadn’t somehow blown my cover during all of this mess, which I just had a gut feeling…

  “Come on, Si, you’ve gotta ride with me. I gotta get you to the hospital.” She cringed back from me and I understood it, even though it killed me.

  “I’m the only ride you’re gonna get out of here. Come on,” I said, and it came out harsh with my frustration.

  She flinched, but struggled to her feet, and I reached out to steady her. She sucked in a sharp breath and stumbled back, but I caught her elbow and kept her from going over.

  “Easy,” I said and tried to make it come out soothing, but I’m afraid I’m kind of shit at things like that.

  I helped her over to the bike and got on. She got on with me
and sucked in a breath when she saw my back. I wasn’t wearing Knights of Crescentia colors. For this, I wore my true colors and I had headed out of the city on my bike, my real bike, with my face covered by one of the bandanas now wrapped around her bleeding hands.

  “Hang onto me as best you can,” I ordered and she did, miserably.

  It was a rough ride to Trinity Gen’s emergency room entrance, rougher on her by far than it was on me. I pulled up just shy of the bright lights and she got off. I looked her in her pale face, into those startling green eyes, the irises edged in an almost bronze or gold, and said, “Go on inside, get yourself taken care of. Some people will come to see you.”

  She frowned slightly and I nodded toward the sliding glass doors.

  “Go on now,” I said, my voice rough with emotion. The guilt over what I’d done to her rode me, likely a demon I would carry on my back for a while.

  She turned and went, her feet shuffling across the too-white cement, patters and droplets of blood falling like tears in her wake. The doors whooshed open and she went through without so much as a backwards glance, and I pulled out my phone.

  He picked up on the second ring.

  “Yeah, Driller,” I said before he could say anything. “Get your ass down to Trinity Gen ER, mute girl by the nickname of Silence. I don’t know her by anything else. She’s got puncture wounds to her hands. Bad ones. All the way through. You need to get her into protective custody.”